Earlier this summer, a hardy band of volunteers carried thousands of downy willow saplings over the Cairngorm Plateau as part of a bid to restore the important montane habitat. Planting the native trees is an important stage in a wider programme of work to improve the habitat in the Cairngorms and within the RSPB Abernethy reserve. At Abernethy we’re establishing a tree nursery to develop seedlings and cuttings of the scarce sub-arctic willows Salix lapponum and Salix myrsinites which can then be planted out to augment the existing isolated remnant populations around the Loch A’an basin.